The school district's market share dipped to 83.3 percent of the school age children in the county.
New state figures released today show that there were 3,771 home schools registered in Wake this past school year with an estimated enrollment of 7,571 students. In 2007-08, there were 3,548 registered home schools in Wake with an estimated enrollment of 7,059 students.
The new home-school data makes it possible to calculate Wake's new market share.
In the 2008-09 school year, the school district had 137,706 students. There were 4,849 students in charter schools and 15,123 in private schools.
The 2008-09 market share of 83.3 percent is slightly below the 83.6 percent figure in 2007-08. Whether the difference is significant is up for interpretation.
In contrast, the Charlotte Observer reported today that Charlotte-Meck's market share in 2008-09 was 81 percent.
Supporters of the Wake school district argue that Wake has consistently stayed in the 82 to 84 percent range in recent years. That's in response to critics those who say the market share has been going down sharply the past few years.
Wake was above 90 percent in the 1990s before charter schools opened. That's also when homeschooling was still fairly new.
Comments
Not Surprised - Class sizes are WAY too big in Wake Schools...
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 09:19 — dianehNot surprised about the rise in home schooling... My youngest started kindergarten at Mills Park Elementary this year & he has 26 students in his kindergarten class. The average class size at Mills Park for kindergarten all tracks is 25 students. Isn't the state mandate for a mandatory of 21 students in kindergarten (K-3) & the school has to be approved with a waiver from the state board of education to have larger sums of students???? I am so disturbed & saddened by the huge class size for kindergarten. I really think my son's learning environment will be affected. I know that Mills Park has not filed for a class size waiver from the state... I'm not sure what recourse I have as a parent. I am aware of the state budget shortfalls but it's crazy that children have to pay for it with their education ;-( Does anyone have any suggestions for what parents can do in this situation?
"I am aware of the state
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 19:04 — user1234"I am aware of the state budget shortfalls but it's crazy that children have to pay for it with their education ;-( Does anyone have any suggestions for what parents can do in this situation?"
If you are a stay at home mom homeschool. Much harm has been done to the school system due to the present state budgt problems with some of the best teachers being let go that it will take three years until the system is stable again and class sizes return to normal and teachers are rehired. By than your child will be half way through ES. There is no quick turn around and you shouldn't subject your kids to what it will be like for the next two to three years as they make do.
...
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 15:17 — SideburnsMills Park is 300 students under-capacity. Did they collapse a track in K? Ask your School Board rep what is going on.
They still have all four
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 15:57 — dianehThey still have all four tracks and all kindergarten classes are over the the state mandated class size limit by 3-5 students...The school is undercapacity but the hiring freeze still applies for some reason and all the kindergarten classes are large... So frustrating.... WCPSS needs to stop building new schools & supply the current schools with what the kids need for their education...If they hired even one more kindergarten teacher at Mills Park this problem wouldn't exist and it would save a lot of kindergarteners frustration in their classes There is such a wide range of learning ability at the entry of the school year for kindergarten that because of the class size this will affect many of the kids during their school day...
You have 3 choices
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 09:43 — g88ky07Home School, Private school or move! With the wcpss you have no recourse and they don't care my friend. Remember this if you are in one of the lucky "rainbow" districts allowed to vote for new school board people this fall! If you don't live in a "rainbow" district help those who do, and can vote, and your efforts will count almost as much!
Our kids are not a commodity!
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 08:59 — ChrisMarschI am appauled at the comparison of our children to the stock market. Our children are not something to be bought, sold and traded like Wake county has done to them. They have been treated as numbers to make Wake county money from the State, the Feds and private organizations. They have been reassigned to meet the numbers they need to make more money and have been ignored, just as the parents have been ignored and the system has failed us yet again. It is no surprise more parents are homeschooling, how can we trust a school system that uses our children for their own agenda. They have violated federal and state laws, they have ignored parents input and involvement in their children's education and have mismanaged the education of our next community leaders and citizens. Our children should not be treated like a money making machine. Education is not and should not be a Wall Street Firm or part of corporate America, it is a community system of parents and teachers to educate our next generation, where the only stake or profit is raising healthy, well educated, citizens that will be the future leaders of our communities and parents of the next generation.
Market Share Drops - Not A Surprise
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 07:07 — RMC10Even as early as two years ago the anaylsts started predicting the bubbles would burst. But Wake County just kept upping their student enrollment projections - extrapolating them to the inth degree of possibility, to get more of the golden goose eggs. Then they started shuffling masses of students in the Spring, again when they should have seen and planned for the market trending downward. Now when the whole market plan has shifted, they are wondering how to again make new plans, new assignments, new bus routes back to save all that planned for monies, all at the expense again of students and families. If they feel they have to use unproven economic diversity - seeing where it has failed- let's pay it backward a little and shuffle back to earlier market share divideders. Stealing state, federal and county monies by artifically creating that 38% F&R all while playing with students, families and teachers lives is not what the folks at WCPSS want - and now apparently don't need! Sometimes a CEO has to call the bad news meeting, saying what we're doing is no longer right for this organization - we have to go back and replan for THIS new market. Does this Board or the new Board have the "you know whats" to break this apart and make it right.
wow
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 11:17 — supportwcpssyou're a financial wizard. I assume most of hte country knew about the imminent demise of our economy and reacted whereas the BOE did not. That is why we don't have banks going under, financial companies going bankrupt, and car companies being bought by the government. It's all because we all knew about it.
We all went down the same yellow brick road just like we did in 2000.
People voting with their feet
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 06:41 — fiestamom27,000 students is a big number! That's a resounding vote of no confidence that can't be explained away by WCPSS. That's not to say they (and their minions) won't try.
Put 27,000 children in a
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 13:43 — SDR256Put 27,000 children in a stadium and you'll see how many it really is. In some states that population would be deemed not a village, not a town but a CITY.
Consistent
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 11:06 — supportwcpssThis % is consistent with other areas of similar wealth and in fact tracks a bit lower. Once again, makign something of nothing.
I'd love to see the concrete proof you didn't offer
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 14:11 — fiestamomSupport,
Where's the numbers/districts you are talking about.
I'll be honest, since your snarky post at 12:06, I've been trying to find the correlating data from Clark County, NV, Abq, NM, Atlanta GA just to see for myself. It's hard info to find, I imagine school districts don't like to put out hard numbers of potential students who opt out.
Not making something of nothing, asking for facts.
look for it
Wed, 08/05/2009 - 12:06 — supportwcpssI posted it months ago...I don't have time to dig it up.
THey will point to CMS which
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 06:49 — CaryCurmudgeonTHey will point to CMS which has an even lower marketshare and pat their backs for doing a great job. Look for a WEP issue of "In Context" soon lauding WCPSS for having the highest marketshare of any county in the eastern part of North Carolina beginning with a 'W' and having over 130,000 students having the best marketshare among its peers.
Here come the ads
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 09:02 — fiestamomI look forward to Lori Millberg on WPTF accusing all those oopting out of WCPSS' net of being rich people who don't want their kids going to school with poor people.
C'mon Lori and WEP, you can do it!
More like a comedy show!
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 09:13 — g88ky07Bill Lemming doesn't currently have time for a quitter from a school board she'll soon have ZERO input in. He's too busy whining about healthcare, clunkers and terrorists. Oh, and causing me to turn to "car engine repair radio" every Monday that he has the controversial sock & shoe drawer organizer Ruth Sheehan on so she can tell us about her elite woes or her hack views! Doubt we'll hear quitter Millberg on there anytime soon.
no kidding
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 16:56 — fiestamomRuth "lives in the 'hood" Sheehan (I say that, b/c she always pulls out that canard every time she wants to boost her liberal cred on the whole forced bussing thing) gets a cake walk every time she goes on that show. (AS IF her knee jerk liberal tendencies were ever in doubt)
But Bill Lemming truly lives up to his name every time Brad Miller, Bob Etheridge, or David Price come on his show. He lets them filibuster their time, they "take" calls, then bloviate for 5 minutes and don't answer the questions.
"he has the controversial
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 15:30 — CaryCurmudgeon"he has the controversial sock & shoe drawer organizer"
LOL, I just coughed up diet coke on my keyboard!!
I have an old keyboard
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 16:54 — g88ky07missing the letters w c p s if you want it.
From the sidelines
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 23:00 — maggiedogWe have watched the WCPSS mess for the past 10 years from the sidelines as our kids have never had to experience Wake County schools - they've been in private school since kinderarten. No reassignments, no ACLU suing us for saying a prayer in the morning, we celebrate Halloween, Christmas, and Easter, zero fights amongst the students in the last 9 years, no 2 hour bus rides that takes the kids past their neighborhood school and deliver them across town in support of a social experiment, and wide spread parent involvement. All this and the test scores are great, and we do all it without dozens of administrators. If WCPSS would pay attention to what attracts parents to private, parochial, and the successful charter schools (magellion, Raleigh Charter HS) they might actually make some decisions that would improve their "market share".
Is anyone surprised?
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 22:24 — srhudson06Wake County continues to treat parents as irrelevant, students as commodities and people leave? More would leave with more choices.
Market share?
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 21:48 — SDR256Was the business term intentional? Somehow it rubs me the wrong way to refer to children as 'market share'. I mean, I know its all big business and all - but still, this just continues to desensitize us to the fact that its the lives and education of children that we're talking about.
Market share is the term the
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 05:44 — KeungHui (author)Market share is the term the school system has used when discussing how many of the county's kids it has.
If figured that Keung. I
Tue, 08/04/2009 - 13:34 — SDR256If figured that Keung. I wasn't chiding you, only generally pointing out how disconnected the terminology is.
There's no surprise here!
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 20:05 — g88ky07Parents have had enough and the ones that can are taking their kids out of this chaos as fast as they can. This October should help start turning it back around, but it's going to take a few more lawsuits and 10 or 20 THOUSAND more home schools and children who go elsewhere. Good for all those who have escaped!!
Infomercial KMisegades
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 19:57 — shank56Dial 1-888- Thales Academy and we'll throw in a couple of boxes of glue sticks and tissues, PLUS a splatter screen for your mom!
Private Schools profit from WCPSS misery
Mon, 08/03/2009 - 19:34 — kmisegadesN&O, why not do a quick survey of Wake County private schools regarding enrollment growth? WCPSS continued lackluster performance and poor BOE leadership has been a boon to local private schools. Perhaps this is a form of stealth economic stimulus for the private sector? Good teachers seeking an alternative to government schools are surely pleased, as are parents.